Editing Aaron Copland (section)

=== Study in Paris ===
[[File:Nadia Boulanger 1925.jpg|thumb|Nadia Boulanger in 1925]]
Copland's passion for the latest European music, plus glowing letters from his friend Aaron Schaffer, inspired him to go to Paris for further study.{{sfn|Smith|1953|p=33}} An article in ''[[Musical America]]'' about a summer school program for American musicians at the [[Fontainebleau School of Music]], offered by the French government, encouraged Copland further.{{sfn|Copland|Perlis|1984|p=35}} His father wanted him to go to college, but his mother's vote in the family conference allowed him to give Paris a try. On arriving in France, he studied at Fontainebleau with pianist and pedagog [[Isidor Philipp]] and composer [[Paul Vidal]]. When Copland found Vidal too much like Goldmark, he switched at the suggestion of a fellow student to [[Nadia Boulanger]], then aged 34.{{sfn|Copland|Perlis|1984|pp=47–48, 50}} He had initial reservations: "No one to my knowledge had ever before thought of studying with a woman."{{sfn|Smith|1953|p=41}} She interviewed him, and recalled later: "One could tell his talent immediately."{{sfn|Pollack|1999|p=41}}

Boulanger had as many as 40 students at once and employed a formal regimen that Copland had to follow. Copland found her incisive mind much to his liking and her ability to critique a composition impeccable. Boulanger "could always find the weak spot in a place you suspected was weak... She also could tell you ''why'' it was weak [italics Copland]."{{sfn|Copland|Perlis|1984|p=63}} He wrote in a letter to his brother Ralph, "This intellectual Amazon is not only professor at the [[Conservatoire de Paris|Conservatoire]], is not only familiar with all music from Bach to Stravinsky, but is prepared for anything worse in the way of dissonance. But make no mistake&nbsp;... A more charming womanly woman never lived."{{sfn|Pollack|1999|p=47}} Copland later wrote: "it was wonderful for me to find a teacher with such openness of mind, while at the same time she held firm ideas of right and wrong in musical matters. The confidence she had in my talents and her belief in me were at the very least flattering and more—they were crucial to my development at this time of my career."{{sfn|Copland|Perlis|1984|p=64}} Though he had planned on only one year abroad, he studied with her for three years, finding that her eclectic approach inspired his own broad musical taste.

Along with his studies with Boulanger, Copland took classes in French language and history at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]], attended plays, and frequented [[Shakespeare and Company (1919–1941)|Shakespeare and Company]], the English-language bookstore that was a gathering place for expatriate American writers.{{sfn|Pollack|1999|pp=54–55}} Among this group in the heady cultural atmosphere of Paris in the 1920s were [[Paul Bowles]], [[Ernest Hemingway]], [[Sinclair Lewis]], [[Henry Miller]], [[Gertrude Stein]], and [[Ezra Pound]], as well as artists like [[Pablo Picasso]], [[Marc Chagall]], and [[Amedeo Modigliani]].{{sfn|Pollack|1999|p=51}} Also influential on the new music were the French intellectuals [[Marcel Proust]], [[Paul Valéry]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], and [[André Gide]]; Copland said the latter was his favorite and most read.{{sfn|Pollack|1999|pp=53–54}} Travels to Italy, Austria, and Germany rounded out Copland's musical education. During his stay in Paris, he began writing musical critiques, the first on [[Gabriel Fauré]], which helped spread his fame and stature in the music community.{{sfn|Smith|1953|p=62}}